Nalubaaga Valley Regeneration

Early this year we started convening neighbourhoods to share the life they dream of in Kiwaatule, Kampala, Uganda. The aim is to weave these human dreams with what the land wants. The local leaders told us “We’ve been calling people to community meetings, people don’t have time, they won’t come.” So, when we sent out invitation letters we were sure to say “We are embarking on a different development process built around a place’s unique potential and co-created bottom-up by all beings who live in the place with support from external stakeholders”.

We were expecting 5-10 people, but to our surprise, we got 20+ people, in others over 30 people. “Tweezule” — let’s do a collective self-discovery, said one, “Tell us more, maybe this is something that has come that we’ve been waiting for,” said another, “as, you’ve given us very little time!”,  “You have planted a seed in us and now it’s growing”, “Right now we are like a snake shedding off its skin (because it doesn't fit anymore or because it's old or worn out) we remain a snake but we’ve removed dirt, moving from old ways of doing things to new ones”. A voice in the crowd says, “tubadde bamuzibe”—“we’ve been blind”. 
 
These metaphors about a failing system and the high energy and spirit can only mean that the only reason the status quo persists is the absence of spaces and support for collective visioning, so individual dreams take the day, in the end, we work below our individual and collective potential, dragging our places and lands along an unsustainable degenerative path.

Today, the land exists, knowledge exists, technology exists, even state will exists, and so does funding, what is missing now, are spaces for collective visioning of a different future, rebuilding trust in place and trust in commons while harnessing the creative potential of locals towards a shared vision. And then coordinating the above resources to manifest it.

The success of this new development process depends on the harmonious interaction of three phenomena;

The opportunity to prototype a high-order path for development.
In the same spirit, we are inviting you to embark on a different process of development – that involves unbuilding the narratives, processes, structures, and systems that perpetuate the destruction of natural, social, and inner well-being and rebuilding new ones based on living systems principles.

Our hope is that, if the high energy spirit and appetite we got from the bottom is married with the same quality of energy and spirit from backers like you, we can transform the why, what, and how we do development.

With Gratitude.